Your workflow is unique 👨💻 - tell us how you use Dropbox here.
Forum Discussion
After uninstalling the Dropbox desktop app many Dropbox driver files remain on system
Application Affected
Uninstall
Device
Asus H670-PRO MB
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
Windows 11
Dropbox App Version (if using the app)
(Unknown)
Question or Issue
While examining the system log I see two errors related to DbxSvc which I've found is a DropBox service. To troubleshoot the issue, I uninstalled DropBox. But to my surprise, the DbxSvc service is still installed and running. I have stopped and removed the service but the drives still reside on my system. I want a complete uninstall so I can perform a clean install.
What is the cause and solution to these errors? What is the supported way to remove this leftover debris from my system, including all registry junk?
The errors I am encountering are:
The DbxSvc service failed to start due to the following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
A timeout was reached (45000 milliseconds) while waiting for the DbxSvc service to connect.
The driver files are residing in the following folders:
C:\Windows\System32
C:\Windows\System32\drivers
C:\Windows\System32\SecureBootUpdates
C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\
C:\Windows\WinSXS
Plus a huge number of Registry Keys.
2 Replies
I'm glad to hear from you. Yes, I followed that process. That process does not remove the components of the DbxSvc service. When that uninstall process is completed, the DbxSvc service is still installed and running. that causes the two errors to still be logged after completing the process.
The files in the remaining C:\Windows folder should almost never be remove 'manually' i.e., just deleting them.
I resorted to the following command to remove the files for that service:
Get-Package -Name Dropbox Update Helper | Uninstall-Package
Get-Package -Name HP Dropbox Plugin | Uninstall-Package
Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBaseThis is the only safe way to remove them. The third Dism command removed one of the set of files in the WinSxS folder. C:Windows\System32\SecureBootUpdates was not removed. I don't know how to remove the remaining files.
Even after all this, there are many, many Registry Keys still present.
- Walter
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey DoctorBashir - thanks for letting us know about this.
Just to clarify, are you using the steps outlined here to do this? Have you tried deleting those entries manually by the way?
Let me know more and we'll take it from there.
